by Roy Glenn
“Morning, Kirk,” Richards said. He had been on leave for the last few days, but Kirk called him the night before and brought Richards up to speed on what he’d been doing.
“Morning Pat. How you doing?”
“Wishing I was still in the bed.”
“Come on. I wanna walk through the house again. Maybe you’ll find something we missed.”
Now that the detectives were in the basement, Kirk walked to the back door and turned to face the room. It wasn’t a huge basement, one large room with a couch, a chair and a big screen TV. Mike’s free weights, Bowflex, Total gym and a treadmill.
“This guy takes his workout seriously,” Richards commented as he wondered around the room.
“Tell me about it,” Kirk replied. He glanced at the alarm keypad next to him. “I assumed that if the killer entered the house through the basement they would’ve had to disable the alarm. For that to happen, the killer would have to had disabled the alarm or cut the power and disable the phone.”
“That’s logical.”
“I paid a visit to the security company that monitors the system. They said that they could report no interruption in the signal coming for this house.”
“Any prints?”
“When the crime scene technicians re-checked the house, they found no fingerprints on or around the keypad.”
“Not surprising.”
“I know. If this murder took place the way I think it did, then there would be no prints. But despite the lack of evidence to support my theory, I’m convinced that the killer entered the house through that door.”
After looking around the room for anything that might give them something to pursue, Kirk went into the bathroom and then into the laundry room. There wasn’t much to see in there, nothing on the shelves, no detergent or bleach or fabric softener.
“Doesn’t seem like a lot of clothes got washed in there,” Richards noted as he appeared at the door.
“They’re probably fold and fluff people and take their clothes to the laundry,” Kirk said and continued his search.
Kirk was about the leave the laundry room and go upstairs, when he noticed something on the floor by the dryer.
“Hello.” Kirk got down on his hands and knees to get a closer look.
“What you got?”
“It’s a cigarette butt,” Kirk said. “To my knowledge, neither Black nor Shy smoke cigarettes.
“This could be important.”
“Run out to the car and get something to put this in,” Kirk instructed his partner.
Richards quickly went out to the car and returned with tweezers and a plastic bag. Kirk knew that there would be DNA on the butt, however without a suspect to match it to, it could prove useless.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and there’ll be a fingerprint on it,” Kirk said as he collected the evidence he’d found and place it in the bag.
“Maybe. But if the killer had on gloves that ain’t happening.”
“You’re right, Pat. But how many times have you seen people take off the glove on their smoking hand before they light up.”
Richards shrugged his shoulders. “Long shot, at best.”
Once the evidence was collected, detectives Kirkland and Richards made one more pass through the basement before going upstairs. Kirk went through the living room where the beating took place.
“This where the beating took place. I believe he cuffed her to this chair. We found blood spatter on the chair and that shade,” Kirk said and pointed.
Richards leaned in and took a closer look. “That’s it? I woulda thought if she was beaten as badly as you say, I would think there’d be more blood than just a few spatters.”
“I thought about that to. The spots are small, so I was thinking that either he used some type of cover or he cleaned up what he could and missed these.”
Then they went to the kitchen and the killing floor and found nothing they could use. Kirk stood still and quiet in the kitchen and walked through the evidence and his theory of the crime again.
“Killer enters the house though the basement and waits in the laundry room, smokes a cigarette before he comes upstairs. Why does he wait?”
“When we catch him I’ll ask.”
“Why not just go upstairs and kill her?” Kirk held up the plastic bag containing the cigarette butt. “You were waiting for something, and you waited so long that you had to have a cigarette.” Kirk thought about the timeline. “This thing was planned, planned down to the second. So how does he know when to go upstairs?”
“Okay,” Richards said. “Let’s assume that your right and this is a set up to frame Black for murdering his wife. He could have come in the house long before the murder and knew about what time Black would get here.”
“Even if he knew that Black was out of town and would be back that night, even if he knew what time his flight came in, how would he know that Black would come straight home?”
“Let’s get outta here. There’s nothing for us here. When we catch the prick we’ll ask him,” Richards said and headed for the door
Kirk started to follow him out but stopped in his tracks.
“What?” Richards asked.
“When the DEA was investigating Black, they installed a monitoring system in the house.”
“Yeah, I remember. In every room.”
“You think it’s still active?”
“Doubtful,” Richard said. “That was a year ago.”
“But if it’s still active we just may have a video tape of the murder.”
“One way to find out,” Richards said as they walked up the stairs.
The system was set up with a storage drive. This way the captured images could be viewed in real time as well as recorded for future use. The system was housed on the second level, under the stairs that led to the attic. When they reached the spot, Kirk took out his pocketknife to remove the wood from the wall and see if the system was still in place. When he knelt down, Kirk noticed the small scratches on the wood. “Take a look at this Pat,” Kirk said, and Richards knelt down next to him.
“Those look fresh,” Richards said and put on his gloves. Richards was able to easily pull the panel from the wall. In fact, it practically fell into his hands. “It’s gone Kirk.”
“If those scratches are truly fresh—,” Kirk started.
“Then the killer removed it,” Richards finished. “Now how would the killer know the system was here? Even if the killer happened to see those little bitty cameras, how would he know the system was here?”
“I don’t know, Pat. But I can think of somebody who might know. Come on.”
It wasn’t too long after leaving the crime scene that detectives Kirkland and Richards found themselves in the Manhattan offices of the DEA. Richards approached the receptionist. “Good morning,” he said
“Good morning,” the receptionist responded. “How can I help you gentlemen?”
“Detectives Richards and Kirkland to see agent DeFrancisco, please.”
The receptionist gave the detectives a very uncomfortable look. “Agent DeFrancisco no longer works at this office, sir.”
“Can you tell me what office he works at?” Kirk asked.
The receptionist looked at the detectives, who were making this harder than it had to be. “Mr. DeFrancisco is no longer employed by this agency,” she told them.
“Really,” Kirk said and thought about asking why, but he knew that even if she knew, she wouldn’t tell him. The word would be classified. “Okay, well how about agent Vinnelli? Does he still work here?”
“Yes, sir, agent Vinnelli does still work out of this office. If you gentlemen would have a seat, I’ll see if he is available to speak with you.”
“Thank you,” Richards flirted with the receptionist. She smiled at the detective before returning to her duties.
Kirk left Richards at the desk and sat down. When Richards joined him he glanced in his partner’s direction.
“No longer employed by
this agency,” Kirk said.
“I take it you don’t think he retired?”
“Do you?” Kirk asked louder than he needed to.
“My bet … he’s in jail.”
“At best they fired his ass. After the DEA shut down the operation against Black, I knew there were going to be some tough questions that he would have to answer.”
“You know if DeFrancisco is in jail, this prick isn’t gonna be all that happy to see us.”
“You think I give a fuck?”
At that moment, a tall black man walked into the reception area and stood in front of the detectives.
“Good morning, gentleman, I’m agent Masters.” Kirk and Richards stood up and shook his hand. “Agent Vinnelli is just wrapping up a meeting and ask me to escort you to his office.”
“You look familiar to me, and I never forget a face,” Kirk said and looked the agent over carefully.
“Like they say, I just have that kind of face,” Masters said.
Once they dispensed with the introductions, the agent escorted them to Vinnelli’s office.
“Have a seat, gentlemen, can I get you anything?”
“No, we’re fine,” Kirk said.
“If there’s anything you need I’m just down the hall,” Masters said and left the office wondering if Kirk really had seen him before. It didn’t take agent Vinnelli long to get finished with his meeting.
“This is a surprise.”
Richards stood up and shook Vinnelli’s hand, but Kirk kept his seat.
“How you doing Vinnelli?”
“Busy. Sorry to keep you guys waiting.”
“How’s things been going, Vinnelli?” Kirk asked as Vinnelli sat down.
“Not bad Kirk, just wrapping up an investigation,”
“Successful?” Richards asked.
“Extremely. Operation Twin Peeks was what it was called. It was a multi-jurisdictional investigation that targeted Enrique Guzman and his drug trafficking organization.”
Kirk and Richards glanced at one another. “I’m not familiar with him.” Richards felt embarrassed to admit.
“Not surprised, Guzman is a little above your pay grade detectives,” Vinnelli said smugly. “He operates a cocaine ring responsible for smuggling more than 15 tons of cocaine per month from Colombia to here and Europe. The investigation has been going on for three years and over that time period there have been more than one hundred arrests and the seizure of fifty-two tons of cocaine, and nearly $70 million in cash and assets.”
“Pretty big deal there,” Richards said.
“It really was, but I know you didn’t come here for that, so, detectives, tell me what brings you two downtown?” Vinnelli asked and leaned back in his chair.
“Mike Black,” Kirk said.
Agent Vinnelli sat up straight in his chair. The smug look that once covered his face was now gone. “What about him?”
“I was just wondering about the surveillance system that was installed in his house,” Kirk said.
“What about it?”
“I was just curious about what happened to it?”
“What do you mean, what happened to it?” Vinnelli asked trying to conceal his nervousness.
“I mean what happened to it? Is it still active? Is it still in the house? I want to know its status?”
“To my knowledge, all of the surveillance equipment was removed from the house when the operation was scrubbed.”
Kirk stood up. “That’s all I needed to know.”
Richards looked at his partner curiously, but he got up too. “Thanks for your time, Vinnelli.”
Vinnelli got up and came around the desk to show the detectives out. He stopped in front on Kirk. “You came all the way down here for that?”
Kirk got in his face. “I like to ask questions face to face, agent Vinnelli.” Kirk took a step back and smiled. “But I’ll catch you later.”
Kirk and Richards walked a little behind Vinnelli as they made their way to the elevator. When they got there, Vinnelli turned to the detectives and extended his hand. “If there’s anything else I can help you gentlemen with don’t hesitate to drop in again,” he said as the elevator door opened.
“There is one more thing that I was curious about agent Vinnelli,” Kirk asked as he and Richards stepped on the elevator.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Agent DeFrancisco.”
Vinnelli quickly reached out and prevented the door from closing. “What about him?”
“The receptionist said the he was no longer employed by this agency. What happened to him?” Kirk asked.
“Retired after his wife died.” Vinnelli let go of the door.
The detectives rode to the first floor in silence and didn’t speak until they were in their car and on their way back uptown. Finally, Richards broke the ice. “I think this prick is involved in this thing,” Richards said as he drove.
“Yeah.”
“Did you notice the way his entire facial expression changed when you mentioned Black’s name?”
“Yeah.”
“And why didn’t he ask why we wanted to know, unless he already knew. Yeah, this asshole is involved in this thing up to his fuckin’ eyeballs.”
“Yeah,” Kirk replied, but he was deep in thought. He agreed with Richards, Vinnelli definitely had some prior knowledge and that troubled him. But how deep was his involvement? Now Kirk wondered if maybe Vinnelli himself was the killer, but what motive would he have? “Find out what happened to DeFrancisco. If he’s retired I wanna know where he’s retired to. I wanna talk to him. And find out how his wife died.”
When the detectives returned to the precinct, they immediately got started looking into DeFrancisco. It didn’t take long for Richards to come up with the answers they were looking for. “I got it, Kirk.”
“What you got, Pat?”
“DeFrancisco is retired all right. He’s serving time at the federal pen in Atlanta.”
“What was the charge?”
“Conspiracy to distribute, income tax evasion, that type of shit,” Richards said. “Buddy of mine is faxing a copy of the indictment now.”
Once Richards received the fax, he read it to Kirk.
“Kenneth Lawrence DeFrancisco did knowingly and intentionally combine, conspire, confederate and agree with each other and with other persons both known and unknown to the Grand Jury to import into the United States, from a place outside thereof, a controlled substance, in violation of Title 21, United States Code, Section 952 a, blah, blah, blah, where alleged that this violation involved five kilograms or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine. Motive?”
“Maybe. Knowing what we know about DeFrancisco and Black’s history.”
“Count two,” Richards continued. “Kenneth Lawrence DeFrancisco did knowingly conduct financial transactions, affecting interstate and foreign commerce, which transactions involved the proceeds of some specified unlawful activity, with the intent to promote the carrying on of said specified unlawful activity, and knowing that the property involved in the financial transactions represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity,” Richard said as the phone on Kirk’s desk rang. Kirk answered and when he hung up, he had the answer.
“His wife committed suicide while the IRS agents raided their house.”
“Wife, huh,” Richards said. “I’d say we found our motive. That would give him a reason to want Black in jail and his wife dead.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
It was getting late in the evening and there was still no word on the whereabouts of Birdie and Albert. Freeze had everybody out looking for them, but it was as if they had dropped off the face of the earth, or at the very least, out of the city. Even their people didn’t seem to know where to find them.
With nothing else to do, Freeze and Nick were sitting in the office at Impressions, when the phone rang. “This is Nick.”
“What up, Nick. This Mylo. Freeze there?”
Nick handed the phone to Freeze.
“What’s up?”
“This Mylo. Listen. I think I may know where Birdie and Albert been hiding,” he said.
When Freeze heard that, he sat straight up in his chair. “Where?”
“Atlantic City at the Tropicana.”
“How’d you hear this?”
“A friend of mine is down in AC now. She said she saw Albert in the casino playing poker. I’m guessing if he got his ass down there then Birdie can’t be far away.”
“And she’s sure about this?”
“Yeah. What you want me to do?”
“Nothing,” Freeze said and checked his weapon. “I got this. Thanks, Mylo, I’ll call you if I need you.”
When Freeze stood up, Nick did too. “Since you checking your gun, I figure we’re going somewhere.”
“Atlantic City. Mylo said he got a tip that our friends are hiding out at the Tropicana in Atlantic City.”
Without another word passing between them, Nick and Freeze left the office. Once they were out of the building, Nick stopped at his car and took a bag out of his trunk.
“What’s that?” Freeze asked as they walked to his truck.
“My little bag of tricks,” Nick replied.
When they got in Freeze’s truck, he started it up and drove off. When Freeze turned on the CD and the music began, a smile came across his lips and he said the words slowly along with 2Pac.
“This is what it sounds like when we ride on our enemies.”
“What you say?” Nick asked.
“This is what it sounds like when we ride on our enemies. You never heard this?”
“I probably have, but you know me and hip-hop. I’m old school. I’m into The Brand New Heavies.”
“Whatever, this us tonight. ’Cause niggas love to scream peace after they started this shit.” By the time the song was over, both Freeze and Nick were nodding their heads to the music and screaming the words, “When we ride on our enemies!”
They proceeded across the bridge into New Jersey, before making their way to the Garden State Parkway, and finally to The Atlantic City Expressway. Once they arrived, Nick and Freeze wasted no time in getting to the Tropicana.
